About Family Tables

Family Tables are collections of parts (or assemblies or features) that are essentially similar, but deviate slightly in one or two aspects, such as size or detail features.

For example, wood screws come in various sizes, but they all look alike and perform the same function. Thus, it is useful to think of them as a family of parts. Parts in Family Tables are also known as table-driven parts.

The following figure shows a family of bolts. The generic is at the top of the figure, and its instances are underneath. The generic is the parent.

Family Tables promote the use of standardized components. They let you represent your actual part inventory in . Moreover, families make it easy to interchange parts and subassemblies in an assembly, because instances from the same family are automatically interchangeable with each other.

Family Table Structure

Family Tables are essentially spreadsheets, consisting of columns and rows. They consist of the following three components:

The base object (generic object or generic) on which all members of the family are based.
Dimensions and parameters, feature numbers, user-defined feature names, and assembly member names that are selected to be table-driven (hereafter referred to as items).
Names of all family members (instances) created by the table and the corresponding values for each of the table-driven items.

Rows contain instances of parts and their corresponding values; columns are used for items.

The column headings include the instance name, and the names of all of the dimensions, parameters, features, members, and groups that were selected for the table. Dimensions are listed by name (for example, d9) with the associated symbol name (if any) on the line below it (for example, depth). Parameters are listed by name (dim symbol). Features are listed by feature number (for example F107) with the associated feature type (for example [cut] ) or feature name on the line below it.

The generic model is in the first row in the table. The table entries belonging to the generic can be changed only by modifying the actual part, suppressing, or resuming features; you cannot change the generic model by editing its entries in the Family Tables.

Family Table names are not case-sensitive. Therefore, any subsequent references to inserted names show them in uppercase letters.

For each instance, you can define whether a feature, parameter, or assembly name is used in the instance either by indicating whether it is present in the instance (Y or N) or by providing a numeric value (in the case of a dimension). All dimension cells must have a value, either a number or asterisk (*) to use the generic's value.

All aspects of the generic model that are not included in the Family Table automatically occur in each instance. For example, if the generic model has a parameter called Material with a value Steel, all instances will have the same parameter and value.

You can scroll horizontally through a Family Table to see additional information. The Instance Name column remains visible as you scroll.

Family Table functionality varies with your module licenses.

Module

Available Family Table Functionality

Basic

Create table-driven parts by adding dimensions to the Family Table

Assembly

Create table-driven assemblies by adding to the Family Table subassembly and part names, as well as assembly dimensions.

Pro/FEATURE

Create table-driven user-defined groups whose group feature dimensions can be table-driven, invariable, or variable.

Add table-driven groups to a part Family Table.